Adrienne liked her. A lot.
“Tea,” Rene said. He passed through a rattling bead curtain leading to the back room of the store. On a round tray was an old, oriental tea set with two cups and a pot. He set it down then sat in a chair in the corner.
“You will like this,” Candace said to Adrienne. She poured two cups and placed one before Adrienne. “Straight from Africa. A private recipe from my cousins. It will loosen you up and help you channel the spirits.”
Adrienne took her cup, enjoying the warmth of the tea. She sniffed the light green-brown liquid. Its scent was faint and light: jasmine and something woody. She sipped it, pleased to find the flavor just as light.
“What brings you here?” Candace asked.
“I’ve been asking Rene about my sister. He won’t tell me anything,” Adrienne replied.
“I don’t remember nothing important,” he growled from the corner. “I spent most my time taking care of my mother until a couple years ago.”
“Rene,” Candace said calmly. “There was a time you were so sweet and innocent.”
He snorted. “That passed.”
“I know.” Candace appeared sad for a moment. “Kids grow up, I suppose.”
Adrienne drank more tea. There was a familiarity between the two of them, the kind born of tragedy or shared blood. Adrienne experienced the same kinship with Therese’s best friend from Atlanta, who continued to check in on her family, even five years later.
“Jax took my journal.” Adrienne didn’t realize she’d spoken until both looked at her.
She set the tea down, feeling relaxed enough to be drowsy. Candace hadn’t touched her tea, and Adrienne’s gaze lingered on the cup.
“Jax took your journal?” Candace asked, drawing Adrienne’s attention away from the tea.
“I’ve been trying to get it back. It was Therese’s. I think … the tea is … working.”
“Relax and let it. I’ll ask you a few questions and that’s it.”
Adrienne nodded.
The scene turned dream-like. Candace asked her a question she didn’t hear. Candace’s lips moved, but the words were lost in the hazy distance between them.
Adrienne heard herself answer, also not processing what she said. She focused on Candace’s dark eyes while responding to questions she couldn’t understand. At one point, she thought she was writing something instead of talking but couldn’t be certain. She didn’t seem able to control her body, and felt as if she just floated around.
After a while lost in her thoughts, Adrienne found herself reaching for more tea. She sipped and drank.
Blinking, the world around her became clear again, and Adrienne’s senses returned, along with her ability to comprehend what was going on. Rene was seated at the table with them.
She shook her head to clear it of the last of the tea’s effects then peered into the cup.
“What just happened?” she asked.
“The tea was a little strong for you, I think,” Candace said with a warm smile. “Look.” She raised her eyebrows towards a piece of paper in front of Adrienne.
Adrienne looked down and snatched her hands off the table. She’d drawn something while in her stupor: the Red Man, his symbol and a few nonsensical sentences resembling those she’d found in her sister’s journal. In addition, she’d written the word chosen three times and drawn boxes around it. Of all she’d written, she couldn’t take her eyes off the robed man.
“Who is he?” she asked, her heart racing once more.
“I don’t know exactly,” Candace said. “Where I come from, the Red Man is a cannibal-like figure, one who preys on his own kind. I think you know what – or who – he is. Or perhaps, the spirits of those who came before you do and are trying to tell you.”
“I wrote this?”
“You did.”
“My sister’s journal was filled with it.” Adrienne stared at the writing. Like her sister’s, it contained some French, some English, some letters randomly capitalized. “They’re not even words, except for chosen. They make no sense.”
“Perhaps they are not meant to be words. Maybe they mean something else.”
“Like what?”
“Letters are symbols. If you look at them not as part of something bigger but as letters, do they tell you something different?”
Adrienne stared at the writing. She didn’t understand what Candace was trying to tell her.
“A code, a sequence, a private meaning?” Candace prodded.
Adrienne shook her head. She sighed and pushed the paper away from her, eyeing the Red Man she’d drawn.
Candace and Rene exchanged a look. Rene’s crossed arms rested on the back of the chair. He shrugged at Candace’s unspoken communication.
“You think I should know what this is,” Adrienne guessed.
“Your sister knew.”
“Really?”
“From what we know of her, yes,” Candace added. “I never met her. The spirits have told me some about her and that she was cursed and Jax had lost his ways and Rene was sure to follow.”
“Lost his way,” Adrienne murmured. “Because of the gang?”
“Because he hurts people.” Candace’s words were hushed.
Adrienne looked from her to Rene. The gang member’s eyes were on the Red Man in her picture, his face unreadable.
“He didn’t hurt my sister, did he?” she asked, uncertain she wanted to know.
“No,” Candace assured her. “He is … was … innocent when he became entangled in your curse. Rene, you are destined to be a warrior for our gods. We failed with your brother.”
“Jax will be fine,” Rene said gruffly. “I don’t fight for no one but Jax.”
“Adrienne will need your help.”
He glanced at her.
“I don’t need help.” Adrienne gazed back, uncertain what to think. “How do I break the curse?”
Candace gathered up the tea items and replaced them on the tray, thoughtful.
“I told you - you need to learn to fight,” Rene told Adrienne.
“It’s not going to help me with the curse!”
“It wouldn’t hurt to learn self-defense, especially in this neighborhood,” Candace said wisely. “Most curses have some sort of limit on them to prevent innocent people from being hurt and also to prevent the originator from harm. An expiration date, single person or goal, or a way to lift it. While drinking tea, you said there was a limerick your grandmother sang to you when you were little. Do you remember it?”
Adrienne thought hard. Her grandmother sang to them in French. Even so, the elderly woman had died before Adrienne was six.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I can ask my mama.”
“Ask her if she knows what generation the curse is in. That might help us,” Candace said. “I don’t know if I can lift it or shed light on what happened to your sister, but I can try.”
“Really?” Adrienne asked, astonished someone was willing to help when no one in her hometown had been willing to even discuss it. “Why would you help me? I can’t pay you.”
“Multiple reasons,” Candace said, glancing at Rene again. “Moral obligation, mostly. I am a mambos whose specialty is healing.”
“Thank you so much!”
“It’s late, Rene. You should take her home.”
Rene rose before Candace finished speaking, his features tight. Adrienne sensed he was upset, then decided that was usually the case and rose, gaze on Candace.
“So I should come back after I talk to my mama?” she asked.
“That would be fine.”
For the first time since arriving to New Orleans, Adrienne had someone to help her uncover more information about her sister. And about the family curse.
She looked at the picture she’d drawn. How had she known how to write the strange code from her sister’s journal?